Sustainable Travel · Uruguay
Eco-Friendly Hotels in Santa Teresa — Your 2026 Guide to Sustainable Stays
Santa Teresa National Park spreads across 3,000 hectares of Uruguay's Atlantic coast in Rocha department, near the Brazilian border — a landscape of dunes, forest and wetland crowned by the star-shaped Fortaleza de Santa Teresa, an 18th-century fortress begun by the Portuguese in 1762 and completed by the Spanish. The park is also a monument to a quieter kind of heroism: in the 1930s and 1940s, a dune-fixation project planted hundreds of thousands of trees to stop the sand from burying the fortress and the roads — one of Latin America's earliest large-scale erosion-control forests. Today it shelters capybaras, deer and abundant birdlife, with kilometres of empty Atlantic beach for swimming, camping and solitude. Book through IMPT and every night removes 1 tonne of CO₂ at the same rate as Booking.com.
Where to Stay at Santa Teresa
Camping in the Park
Camping is the classic Santa Teresa experience: organised campgrounds sit among the pines near the fortress and the beach, with showers, shops and ranger stations. Pitch a tent or park a camper under the trees, fall asleep to the surf, and wake to the fortress lit by morning sun. In summer the campgrounds fill with Uruguayan families — book ahead.
Posadas and Estancias Nearby
Around the park, small posadas and countryside estancias offer rooms with home cooking — try the nearby villages of La Coronilla and Punta del Diablo (a surfer town up the coast, with its own page on this site) or the border town of Chuy. These are simple, family-run places that suit the region's low-key rhythm.
Punta del Este as a Base
Two hours west, Punta del Este offers Uruguay's widest hotel choice, making Santa Teresa an easy day trip or overnight stop on a coastal road trip. IMPT lists accommodation across Uruguay at the same rate as Booking.com.
Every Santa Teresa booking on IMPT retires 1 tonne of verified carbon credits on-chain — funded from our commission, never added to your rate. Search Santa Teresa hotels now →
The Fortress and the Forest that Stopped the Sand
The Fortaleza de Santa Teresa is the best-preserved colonial fortress in the River Plate region: a six-pointed star of stone and earthworks built to guard the coast road between the Portuguese and Spanish empires. Begun by the Portuguese in 1762 and captured and completed by the Spanish in the years that followed, it was restored from the 1920s by the Uruguayan army and now houses a museum of period rooms, weapons and colonial life. From its walls you look out over the Atlantic, the park's forest and the lagoon — a view nearly unchanged in two and a half centuries.
Below the walls runs the forest's origin story. In the 1930s and 1940s, under the direction of forestry engineer Carlos Racine, teams planted hundreds of thousands of trees — pines, eucalyptus and native species — to anchor the shifting dunes that threatened the fortress and the coastal road. The project worked, and the result is a living demonstration of ecological restoration: dunes held in place, a forest where there was bare sand, and habitat for capybaras, deer, foxes and more than a hundred bird species. The park's long Atlantic beaches — La Moza and the miles of shore around it — remain gloriously empty, and the whole place runs on a slow, outdoorsy Uruguayan rhythm.
Book through IMPT and your stay is carbon-negative: 1 tonne of CO₂ removed per booking — 28 times the average hotel night's 35 kg footprint — retired on-chain with a public receipt, at the same rate as Booking.com. Cashback on purchases at 25,000+ partners, or gift a trip with GPS-tagged, photo-verified tree planting.
How IMPT Makes Your Santa Teresa Stay Carbon-Negative
Here's the maths. An average hotel night produces roughly 35 kg of CO₂ — from air conditioning, laundry, lighting, and food service. When you book any Santa Teresa hotel through IMPT, we retire 1,000 kg of UN-verified carbon removal credits. That's 28 times what your stay produces. Not carbon-neutral — carbon-negative.
The cost to you? Zero. IMPT funds the removal from its booking commission. You pay the standard nightly rate — in fact, IMPT offers the same rate as Booking.com on the same room, with carbon removal built in. The carbon credits are tokenised on Ethereum, retired against a named project, with a public retire code anyone can verify. No double-counting. No greenwashing. Just verified carbon removal, every night.
- €5 free credit when you sign up — applied to your first Santa Teresa booking
- 5% back on every stay — 3% funds carbon projects, 2% as travel credit
- 8M+ hotels worldwide, 195 countries — Santa Teresa is just the start
- Free cancellation on most rates, typically up to 48 hours before check-in
Beyond Hotels — More Ways IMPT Works in Santa Teresa
Shop through IMPT's 25,000+ retail partners for cashback on purchases that also offset carbon. Send someone a trip credit gift to visit Santa Teresa — IMPT plants trees with named farmers, GPS-tagged and photo-verified.
For business travel, IMPT's B2B Corporate Travel platform gives you exclusive rates, automatic ESG reporting, and a single dashboard tracking every booking's carbon impact. Companies with CSRD compliance needs get automated sustainability reporting out of the box.
Interested in running IMPT in Uruguay? Country Ownership offers 50% revenue share on every transaction from Uruguay-registered users, with 8% APY staking yield. Book a call →
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Santa Teresa National Park?
Santa Teresa is on Uruguay's Atlantic coast in Rocha department, about 18 kilometres from the border town of Chuy and roughly three hours' drive from Montevideo. It is one of Uruguay's oldest and largest national parks.
Can you stay inside the park?
Yes — the park has organised camping zones among the pines near the fortress and the beaches, with basic facilities. Around the park, small posadas and estancias offer rooms; the nearest towns are La Coronilla, Punta del Diablo and Chuy.
What is the Fortaleza de Santa Teresa?
A star-shaped 18th-century fortress begun by the Portuguese in 1762, captured and completed by the Spanish, restored from the 1920s and now a museum. It is the best-preserved colonial fortification in the River Plate region.
Why is the park's forest famous?
The pine and eucalyptus forest was planted in the 1930s–40s under forestry engineer Carlos Racine to stop sand dunes burying the fortress and roads — one of Latin America's first large-scale dune-fixation and reforestation projects, and a working example of ecological restoration.
When is the best time to visit?
October to March brings the best weather; January and February are peak beach season with lively camping. The park is quieter and greener in spring and autumn, and the fortress is worth visiting year-round.
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